The present invention relates to a maintenance method and system for a plasma processing apparatus having a vacuum processing chamber, and more particularly to maintenance during a restoring operation after completing the maintenance such as wet cleaning involving the opening of the vacuum processing chamber to the atmosphere.
Conventionally, the restoring operation after the maintenance involving the opening of a plasma processing apparatus to the atmosphere needs to check whether the air etc. Leaks out of the vacuum processing chamber after starting vacuum evacuation, to check an attained pressure in the vacuum processing chamber, to check an amount of conveyed foreign substances and an amount of foreign substances produced by an electric discharge, and to check an etching rate or a film forming rate. Besides, because a judgment in each operation stage must be made based on experiences, it is necessary to have a person to operate or decide in each stage.
FIG. 7 shows an example of a processing procedure after wet cleaning according to a conventional method.
After completing a wet operation, the evacuation by a vacuum pump is started. Then, a leak check and an attained pressure check are performed in about two hours. If their results are NG (no good), the evacuation is performed again. And, if they are OK, a transfer, a gas discharge, a foreign substance check (that is, the checking of the increase of the number of foreign substances on a foreign substance checking wafer before and after QC (quality control such as the transfer processing)) (pre-measurement before QC, QC, post-measurement after QC) are performed. If they are OK, a dummy run (checking of the electric discharge using checking sample) is performed. Besides, an electric discharge foreign substance check (that is, the checking of the increase of the number of foreign substances on a foreign substance checking wafer before and after QC (discharge processing in this case)) (pre-measurement before QC, QC, post-measurement after QC) is performed, and if it is OK, a rate check (checking of the etching rate or the film forming rate) (pre-measurement before QC, QC, post-measurement after QC) is performed. If it is OK, processing of preproduction wafers (that is, the processing of an actual wafer before the production of the wafers) is started, and if it is OK, the wet operation is terminated. Then, processing of products is started.